pirates must be prevented from harassing the islands, and the best
means for this end is to proclaim that any one who will may capture
and enslave those pirates. No royal official should be allowed to
attend the session of the Audiencia in which a case concerning him
is tried. When Filipino natives serve as soldiers, their families
should during their absence be relieved from tributes and other
impositions. The ecclesiastical affairs of the Malucas should be
under the jurisdiction of Cebú, not of Goa. The commanders of the
trading ships should not be allowed to carry on the trade that they
now do; and the officials at Acapulco should be checked in making
extortionate charges. Ignorant and inefficient men should not be
placed in the ships as sailors. The common seamen therein (who are
Filipino natives) are inhumanly treated, and many of them die from
hunger, thirst, or cold, on each voyage. Slave women are carried on
the ships, in spite of the royal prohibition; and thus arise "many acts
offensive to God," and much cause for scandal. No sailor or passenger
(unless a person of rank) should be allowed to take with him more
than one male slave. Numerous other abuses are mentioned, regarding
the traffic in slaves, the treatment of seamen, and the overloading of
ships. The Chinese at Manila are oppressed by the royal officials--who,
moreover, appropriate their own household supplies of food from the
royal storehouses at the lowest possible prices. Municipal officers
and other leading citizens should not be compelled, as now, to live on
their encomiendas. Flour, rigging, and many other supplies should be
obtained in the islands, instead of being imported from Nueva España;
a great saving of money would be thus effected. The oppressive acts
of the friars toward the Indians should be checked; and no more
orders should be allowed to establish themselves in the islands. The
Chinese immigrants in Luzón should be collected in one community,
and induced to cultivate the soil. No relative or dependent of any